After a little more than half a century since its initial development, computer code is extensively and intimately woven into the fabric of our everyday lives. From the digital alarm clock that wakes ...
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After a little more than half a century since its initial development, computer code is extensively and intimately woven into the fabric of our everyday lives. From the digital alarm clock that wakes us to the air traffic control system that guides our airplane in for a landing, software is shaping our world: It creates new ways of undertaking tasks, speeds up and automates existing practices, transforms social and economic relationships, and offers new forms of cultural activity, personal empowerment, and modes of play. This book examines software from a spatial perspective, analyzing the dyadic relationship of software and space. The production of space, the authors argue, is increasingly dependent on code, and code is written to produce space. Examples of code/space include airport check-in areas, networked offices, and cafés that are transformed into workspaces by laptops and wireless access. The book argues that software, through its ability to work universally, transduces space. The authors have developed a set of conceptual tools for identifying and understanding the interrelationship between software, space, and everyday life, and illustrate their arguments with empirical material. Finally, they issue a manifesto, calling for critical scholarship into the production and workings of code rather than simply the technologies it enables—a new kind of social science focused on explaining the social, economic, and spatial contours of software.Less

Code/Space : Software and Everyday Life

Rob KitchinMartin Dodge

Published in print: 2011-04-22

After a little more than half a century since its initial development, computer code is extensively and intimately woven into the fabric of our everyday lives. From the digital alarm clock that wakes us to the air traffic control system that guides our airplane in for a landing, software is shaping our world: It creates new ways of undertaking tasks, speeds up and automates existing practices, transforms social and economic relationships, and offers new forms of cultural activity, personal empowerment, and modes of play. This book examines software from a spatial perspective, analyzing the dyadic relationship of software and space. The production of space, the authors argue, is increasingly dependent on code, and code is written to produce space. Examples of code/space include airport check-in areas, networked offices, and cafés that are transformed into workspaces by laptops and wireless access. The book argues that software, through its ability to work universally, transduces space. The authors have developed a set of conceptual tools for identifying and understanding the interrelationship between software, space, and everyday life, and illustrate their arguments with empirical material. Finally, they issue a manifesto, calling for critical scholarship into the production and workings of code rather than simply the technologies it enables—a new kind of social science focused on explaining the social, economic, and spatial contours of software.